Good Job for Seagate: 2.5-Inch Hard Disk Platter at Record 1TB

Seagate Technology plc has achieved a milestone in areal density with a new HDD that can offer 2TB of capacity in a slim 7mm package.

This achievement is significant because in final product form it will give OEMs freedom to design a new generation of mobile products that are extremely thin, light-weight, fast, power-efficient and cost-effective.
 
“In an industry first, our engineers have been able to boost areal density to 1TB per platter in a 2.5-inch form factor, which will give OEMs the flexibility to design and build virtually any kind of mobile device they can envision, with plenty of storage to boot,” said Mark Re, Seagate’s CTO. “Combining new mechanical firmware architectures, with state of the art heads, media and electronic design, this technology is a real game changer- providing four times more capacity than a 0.25TB SSD at a substantially lower cost.”
 
The new drive technology is the first to incorporate recording-subsystem components-head, media, preamp, channel-to achieve greater areal densities, well ahead of competitive offerings. Its advanced, high-spatial efficiency mechanics deliver lightweight, low acoustics and mechanical robustness capable of new levels of drive stability even when subject to intense shock and vibrations.
 
The new drive weighs 3.17oz., and is 25% lighter than the previous generation of Seagate’s mobile HDD products. Smaller drives free up valuable space in a mobile device to accommodate additional designed-in features, such as bigger batteries, more memory and better air circulation. With up to 2TB of space, the drive can also enable affordable high capacity storage – storing more than 500,000 songs, 320,000 photos, 240 hours of high definition video or 26 hours of 4K ultra-high definition content.
 
“The notebook PC continues to be an important productivity tool, especially for content creators who are producing an enormous volume of data,” said John Rydning, IDC’s research VP for HDDs. “Seagate’s new ultra-mobile HDD technology is ground breaking for Seagate and the HDD industry, making it possible for notebook PC users to have generous storage capacity in a thin and light PC.”
 
While the new areal density milestone was achieved in a traditional HDD format, Seagate is also examining a hybrid format as well. A hybrid version would combine NAND flash with Seagate’s proprietary learning algorithms, to deliver supreme performance and a richer consumer experience at a much lower cost than comparable SSDs.